IN DEPTH: Nearly 1 year after deadly attack on U.S. diplomatic mission in Libya, a new book goes inside the compound to tell the riveting story

One of the commanders dispatched several of his men to retrieve the plastic fuel containers and bring them to the main courtyard.

A gunman opened one of the cans and began to splash the gasoline on the blood-soaked floor of the February 17 command post. The man with the jerry can took great pains to pour the harsh-smelling fuel into every corner of the building before igniting an inferno.

‘I see flames and smoke’

A. watched from between the metal bars inside the safe haven as a fiery clap was followed by bright-yellow flames that engulfed the command post. He updated the TOC with what he could see and, more ominously, what he could smell.

“A. here. I see flames and smoke.”

“Roger that, me too,” said R., in the TOC.

R. keyed the microphone again and said, “Backup en route.”

Thick plumes of acrid gray and black smoke billowed upward to cloud the clear night sky. The Special Mission Compound was painted in an eerie orange glow.

FILE - This Sept. 13, 2012 file photo shows a cameraman filming one of U.S. consulate burnt out offices after an attack that killed four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens on the night of Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2012, in Benghazi, Libya.
— AP

FILE - This Sept. 13, 2012 file photo shows a cameraman filming one of U.S. consulate burnt out offices after an attack that killed four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens on the night of Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2012, in Benghazi, Libya.
/ AP

For added fury, some of the gunmen broke the windshields of several of the February 17 Martyrs Brigade vehicles parked near their command post and doused the interior of the vehicles with gasoline. A lit cigarette, smoked almost to the filter, was tossed in to ignite another blaze.

The survival equation at the Special Mission Compound was growing dim. R. summoned C. and D. over the radio:

In the background, the TOC agent could hear the sound of the angry mob in the hallways, over the agent’s keyed microphone. R. communicated his situation to the CIA Annex, the regional security officer in Tripoli, and the Diplomatic Security Command Center in Virginia, via his cellphone. Well over a dozen terrorists were trying to break through the cantina at the residence.

C. and D. had shut the main door and moved the refrigerator from inside the kitchen and barricaded the door with it. They hunkered down low, with their assault rifles in hand, prepared for the breach and the ballistic showdown. They were trapped. So, too, were R. and B., in the TOC.

A. leaned upward, glancing out through the murky transparency of his window, peering across the bars at the violence before him. He watched as the fuel bearers inched their way forward toward the residence.

In that darkened bunker of the villa’s safe haven, A. faced a life-changing or life-ending decision that few of even the most experienced DS agents have ever had to make: play Rambo and shoot it out or remain unseen and buy time? As retired DS agent Scot Folensbee reflected, “When you are faced with immediate life-and-death decisions, you know that ultimately, if you survive, you will be second-guessed and criticized. So, the only thing to do is realize that in these cases of ‘Should I shoot or not shoot,’ you as the agent are the one making the decision and you the agent will have to live with that decision. There wasn’t a right decision here, and there wasn’t a wrong one, either.”